little acorns
by circuswheel
Summary: Andre she's only known for about two years, since midway through sixth grade when he transferred in from Pasadena, but Robbie she's had to deal with for forever – since the fourth grade! / Or, The Fantastic Adventures of Jade and Friends, preteen edition.
1. Chapter 1

**Here's some pre-Hollywood Arts ficlets, and I wrote 'em listening to old White Stripes albums so forgive the title. I haven't seen many Robbie/Jade friendship fics – I've seen Cat and Jade, Cat and Beck, other things. Anyway, you know me and Rade – and there's some Andre thrown in too! Probably won't go anywhere or do anything good, though.**

**Going to be mostly show-compliant, I think, but forgive me if I mess up, because I don't remember everything everyone's said in every episode. However, in The Worst Couple, Jade did say she tolerates Robbie. :) Maybe this is why!**

**Little Acorns**

**I**

_i wish we were stuck up a tree  
then we'd know it's nicer below_

There's only a few more moments left in class, and Jade's swinging her Converse-clad feet back and forth, idling and watching out of the corners of her eyes as Robbie's mouth gives an irritated little tick each time the heel of her shoe connects with the metal leg of their table and emits a muted little _ding!_

"Do you have to do that?" he asks her.

_Ding! _"I'm bored," Jade says. "You're hogging the blueprints."

Robbie screws his fat mouth up into a wry little line, looking like he's thinking about saying something smart back to her, then decides against it and silently shoves the diagram over at her.

Every two months the 7th and 8th graders rotate through electives. December and January is Woodworking – "Shop class again," Robbie had said dismally when they got their schedules. He'd dragged his feet extra slow and made them late to class, and they had had to sit at the last table at the back, which is all lopsided and squeaky.

In December they'd made napkin holders (Jade painted hers mahogany, and Robbie chose cedar red. She'd had to go up to the big saw machine and cut his pieces out for him because he was the biggest baby). January they're making rockets for some reason, cutting out the model tubes from impossibly big cardboard slabs.

"Want to see the new Hulk movie with me and my mom this weekend?" Robbie asks her, shrinking down on his metal stool as the shop teacher passes by slowly to inspect their work, of which they have none.

"Maybe," Jade says briskly, using her new shiny scissors to cut through the tough cardboard, wondering why it doesn't look like the blueprint in front of her. "I don't really like that guy, that actor."

"He might do okay," says Robbie. He leans over to turn the blueprint towards him. "Jade, you're making it crooked! I wanted to cut it!"

"Don't badger me!" she hisses. "You can cut the wings later. And I liked Edward Norton."

Robbie pouts, because they don't get to cut the wings out until next week. "My mom will buy your ticket and she'll get us candy," he says. "Also she wants to know if you liked your Christmas scarf."

Robbie's mom always buys her stupid presents for holidays, probably as some sort of thanks for being friends with her pathetic son. This year's Christmas scarf was green and sort of ugly, but really soft. Jade's dad said she should write a thank you note, but that was stupid because Jade usually went to Robbie's house at least once a week and saw his mom there all the time. She's been working a lot, though.

"Yeah it's all right," Jade grunts, lying, because she hasn't even worn it yet.

"My mom got it at Macy's," Robbie tells her for some reason. Oh, that probably means it's expensive. Drat. Maybe she should write out a greeting card.

"My mom got it at Macy's," floats over an annoying voice, and it's Jeanie Braxis, aka Jade's mortal enemy, passing by and mocking Robbie as she goes to sharpen her pencil.

Robbie turns an ugly shade of puce, which is the color he turns whenever Jeanie opens her stupid mouth and says anything to him. "Leave me alone, Jeanie!"

"Quit saying stupid things then, Shapiro," Jeanie retorts, and sharpens her pencil loudly over his grumbled reply. "No one cares about your dumb mother."

"My mom isn't dumb!" Robbie squeals out, mortally offended.

Jade rolls her eyes. Robbie is the biggest momma's boy – he makes himself too easy of a target. "Calm down, Robbie. You'll burst another vein in your dumb neck."

Jeanie gives him a little push to the back of the head as she walks by. "Listen to your girlfriend, buttmunch."

"She is _not_ my girlfriend!" Robbie yelps out, as Jade also yelps, "I am _not_ his girlfriend!" She clutches her scissors very hard, but then the bell is ringing and Jeanie's smirking face disappears amongst the sea of scrabbling students.

Out in the hallway, Andre is already waiting for them, munching on snacks as usual – he almost always shares, which is part of why Jade likes him. He snaps off a stick of his Kit Kat Bar and hands it to her, and she leans heavily on the locker beside them to devour it.

"Y'all look pretty wazzed out," he comments. Jade scowls and grunts around a mouthful of chocolate.

"I hate shop class," Robbie says, looking sad and laden-down with his heavy bookbag and their stupid shop blueprints. "I hate Jeanie Braxis." Andre hums knowingly. Robbie pouts over at him. "You didn't get me anything?" He swipes at Jade's piece of chocolate, and she snarls again and hits him hard with her free hand.

"Ain't nothing you can eat in that vending machine," Andre says, not sorry. Robbie is pretty much allergic to life, and also turkey, which is weird.

Robbie looks dismal anyhow. "Can we go now? Please?" he says. "Or can you two not walk and eat? I don't want to miss my bus again!"

Jade and Andre exchange a glance, then roll their eyes in tandem, which Robbie notices, and squeaks his offense at. He turns and starts rushing down the hallway, bookbag waddling comically, not waiting for them. After a second eye-roll, Andre hands her the last Kit Kat piece they head off after Robbie, faintly immune to his squawking.

Andre she's only known for about two years, since midway through sixth grade when he transferred in from Pasadena and got on her good side the first day by knocking someone's books out of their hands for teasing Robbie, but Robbie she's had to deal with for _forever_ – since the fourth grade! His mother works at the same law office as her dad and they used to have the same babysitter.

Robbie is hopeless and awkward and really short, but he's pretty funny sometimes and he always has snacks for her and he does her science homework, so she keeps him around.

Outside, Robbie stands under the middle school's awning and stares dolefully out at the buses that have lined up, looking for number 37. It's cold and windy out today, and his curly hair flutters wildly in the breeze, sticking straight up and hurting Jade as usual.

"It's not up front," she says, walking past him and turning slightly so that her own heavy bookbag knocks into him. "It's never up front."

"I was just _hoping_," Robbie says, skittering to the side, and then follows her down the steps. Jade stamps hard on the shoes of a little seventh grader who's standing under the tree she likes. It yelps and scurries away. "You're a bully," Robbie tells her, and then leans happily in the spot that the kid had been occupying.

"Am not," Jade scowls. Andre smiles, blissfully silent, unlike Robbie, who never is.

"You guys want me to wait for you, or can I go?" he asks. Andre only lives a few blocks away from school.

Jade eyes him consideringly. "You got any more candy?"

"Not for you."

Jade waves her hand. "Eh, what good're you? Go, then."

"I see how it is, West," Andre says, shouldering his backpack.

Jeanie sweeps by them then, knocking into Andre, saying, "Babies wait for the late bus!"

Robbie turns puce once more. "Shut up, Jeanie! It's not even the late bus!"

Andre and Jade exchange a quick glance. It's never a good thing when Robbie tells Jeanie to shut up. Usually he ends up with a wedgie or dirt in his hair – he really never learns. Andre drops his bookbag, possibly ready for combat, eyes moving to rest on Robbie, who's quaking with rage.

Jeanie stops, folding her arms to glower at him, leaning heavily on one foot. Even leaning, she still towers over Robbie – Robbie's really short, but Jeanie's really tall – even taller than Jade, who can never find jeans that fit because she's too skinny and, according to Robbie, has freakishly long calves (Robbie isn't very good at making people feel better about themselves). "Excuse me, retard?" she asks.

Robbie turns even pucer (Jade knows it's really 'more puce,' but she feels the situation calls for 'pucer'). "I am _not_ retarded," he yaps out. "Maybe that's what they call you in your remedial English class – "

Ooooh boy, say Andre's eyes, which have caught hers again.

Crud, say Jade's in resignation.

"Oh, shut up, retard!" Jeanie hollers out, her bug-eyes darkening dangerously, and she leans down quickly to grab up a big handful of dirt and fallen leaves, then begins advancing on Robbie.

"Stay away from me, Jeanie!" Robbie yelps warning, trying rather unsuccessfully to back up, as there's nowhere to go aside from into the sad Charlie Brown tree that he's leaned up on.

Jeanie grabs Robbie by his shirt collar and thrusts the dirt clod down his shirt, then shoves him hard in the chest, mashing it. Robbie yelps out like he's been shot. Jade, who's never quick enough, reaches out to yank Jeanie's backpack strap, sending her skittering away from Robbie.

"Leave him alone, Braxis!" she hollers, because she's the only one who's allowed to cause Robbie physical harm – she's _earned_ it.

"Pluck your eyebrows, Cavegirl!" Jeanie brays out, and then, twisting away, makes a beeline for her brother's car, idling down at the end of the school lot. It takes both Robbie and Andre grabbing onto Jade's backpack to keep her from running after and creaming the girl.

"I'll kill her," Jade says, seething and panting, after she's dragged both boys about fifteen feet across the courtyard and their sneakers have left heavy dirt-trails on the grass and her shoulders ache.

"I doubt it," Andre says, because Jade threatens Jeanie's life about fourteen times a day (for a week, he'd taken a tally). He rubs his palms together contemplatively, frowns down at them. "You are _really strong,_ though. I think I got a blister."

Robbie looks dismally down at his front. "This polo is new," he says sorrowfully. "My mother's going to kill me."

Jade just gives out a little inarticulate snarl.

Robbie moves two steps closer to her then, and he looks very little and sort of helpless, standing there looking at her with a dirt smudge on his face and broken-up leaves all stuffed down his shirt. It makes Jade feel a strange mess of sad for him, puffed up anger for both of them, and a little bit of resentment at his weirdness – but mostly just sad. "Please don't be so mad about Jeanie, Jade," he says. He adds, "I _like_ your eyebrows. I think they give you character.

"Yeah," says Andre. After a beat, he adds, "A lot of character."

She hates them both. She hate everyone! She's going to go home and just shave her eyebrows off. She might as well shave her whole head, too, for good measure.

She looks up just in time to see her and Robbie's bus pulling away from the lot, backfiring softly.

Robbie yelps. "I knew it would be at the front, Jade!"

"Shut up, you waste of air! Now we really do have to wait for the late bus! You suck! I'm going to the library!"

Andre looks happy. "See you guys tomorrow."


	2. Chapter 2

**II**

_take all your problems  
and rip 'em apart  
carry them off  
in a shopping cart _

Tuesday sucks and she steps in a mud puddle getting her new cute birthday flats from all dirty and brown and dumb smelly Robbie has been giving her the silent treatment for _four minutes_.

Homeroom is almost over and then they won't talk again until shop class, which is not even until sixth period! They don't even have English together this semester, for the first time ever, which is horrible, not that Jade will ever say that to him, he can't just _not talk_ to her –

Jade gives Robbie's arm a series of three hard pokes. "Rob_bie_!" she hisses once more, tone bordering on whining, which she reasons is only because of the mud puddle anyway. "Nerdbomb! What's wrong with you?"

Robbie quakes in his chair and clenches his jaw, the tips of his ears turning red. He stares resolutely down at his English homework.

"He mad at you," says Andre, who's just swooped into the classroom, almost-late as usual with his backpack in disarray. Hey, his hair looks really fuzzy today. Tuesdays suck. He takes his normal seat at the empty desk behind the two, scraping the chair back loudly. "Also, hi."

"Hey," Jade says, not very interested in niceties because _he mad_? For what?! She hasn't even been here to do anything to the boy! She assaults Robbie's little chicken arm again. "Robbie!" she exclaims, and is dismayed to still hear the whine in her voice. She leans in a little closer. "Robbie, why you mad?"

Andre makes a little amused sound from behind them, because he enjoys it when Jade isn't grammatically correct (Robbie doesn't). Robbie just quakes again, still silent, so Andre supplies: "He's mad because you weren't here yesterday."

"Seriously?" Jade asks, and gives the little chicken arm another poke. "Shapiro, what's wrong with you?"

Robbie quakes again.

"Where_ were_ you?" he cries, all agitated, because Jade hardly ever misses days. "You weren't there and I even brought a Poptart for you and you said I have to _call you_ if I'm going to be absent, you're so inconsiderate! Jeanie poured blue paint all over me in shop class and she just smiled and said _oops_ and everyone laughed at me and there was no toilet paper in the bathroom and where _were_ you?"

"Wait, _what?_" Jade cries. Robbie gives out a flustered exhale and clutches his pencil very tightly.

"He cried for like an hour," Andre says from behind them, helpful.

Robbie scowls hard which makes him look ugly right now, since his face is so red from being – you know, Robbie. "I was not _crying,_" he says.

"He was cryin'," Andre says, sounding muffled, sounding like he's eating a Fat Cake.

Jade twists around in her seat. "What you got?" she demands, and Andre leans back in his chair and dangles the rest of the Fat Cake at her, looking pleased. "Sharing is caring, Andre."

"Jade!" Robbie squeals, looking even more agitated. "You don't even care about me!"

"Shut up!" Jade says, not taking her eyes from the Fat Cake, and she leans over to hit him. She doesn't even need to look over to slug his shoulder, as it's always there. "I was _sick_. _You_ don't even care about _me!_"

"Yes I do," says Robbie, instantly cowed. "Sick with that? Are you contagious?" She senses him staring at her intensely, which is a familiar and annoying feeling. Kindly, "It's okay if you are."

Eye roll. "Don't worry, anyway. I'll get Jeanie. Not because I care about you. I was going to get her anyway."

Robbie looks suitably cheered. "I had to paint our rocket without you," he says. "I named it the Gary Glider."

"Gary!" says Jade, as Andre finally acquiesces and hands her the rest of the Fat Cake. "I miss you so much please come back to me!"

"Meow," says Shapiro. Andre rolls his eyes heavily, because he doesn't watch cartoons because his parents and grandmother just watch Fox News all the time, and he gets really bored when she and Robbie start quoting Spongebob Squarepants for long periods of time. "Hey, your shoes are real dirty. Did you fall down?"

"Y'all are weird," says Andre.


	3. Chapter 3

**III **

_we sit side by side in every class  
teacher thinks that I sound funny  
but she likes the way you sing _

"You should audition for this place with me," Jade says, sliding the Hollywood Arts paperwork that had came to the house addressed to_ her_ two nights ago across the lunch table to him. "Andre too, I think."

Robbie reaches over to gather the pamphlets towards him, and he smooths the papers down, looking at them very seriously, which Jade appreciates. "Hollywood Arts?" he says, reading. He scrubs at his fuzzy hair with a hand, absent. "Selective Liberal Arts High School. Hey, I drove past there once with my mom! It looks really nice."

"I wanna transfer there," Jade tells him. "They're holding entry tryouts for freshman the first week of April."

Robbie frowns contemplatively. "This school is really nice, Jade," he says, which – isn't that basically what he's just said anyway? "I don't think I could get into a school like that. I'm not good at anything."

"That's not true! You got your guitar and your harmonica, don't you?"

"So what?" Robbie says. "I'm not very good at either of them. Andre says I squeak too much. And my guitar's old."

"Well you aren't supposed to be perfect already," Jade insists. "That's what going to the school is for! You're only twelve."

"I'll be thirteen in a month!" he squeals, reminding her, like she could forget about his stupid Bar Mitzvah if she wanted to, then looks thoughtful. "Hey, maybe I can do an act with Rex or something."

Little does he know she's totally going to hide and / or take apart the stupid dummy he's gotten for Christmas way before auditions to stamp out any chance of this. "Maybe. I'm going to write a five minute play," Jade tells him. Nicely, "Maybe you can star in it."

Robbie looks suitably cheered. "Really?" he says. "That would be so cool. Hey, maybe you can use your dad's film camera and make a movie."

"Hey, yeah," Jade says, thinking. Dad's camera is super expensive, but he'd let her use it last month to film the volcano that she and Robbie and Andre had made for science class. It had been sort of a let-down because it hadn't really erupted as it was supposed to. The flour had just kind of trickled out uneventfully. She blames Robbie and Andre for being stupid boys.

Robbie peers over the paperwork some more. He looks sort of like an old man, all studious, going over his taxes or something, which she wisely doesn't share right now. "It's probably too expensive," he says, switching back to dismal – his normal disposition, and part of why Jade likes him, but not right now when she wants him to be excited! "Even if I got in Mom would never pay for it."

"Yes she would!" Jade insists. Robbie's mom is as a legal secretary, and that's all right, but she has to pay for everything on her own. Sometimes Robbie's weird uncle lives with them for long periods of time, but Jade doesn't think he ever pays them anything, and he eats all their snacks when she's over. "You can get scholarships and stuff too if you're really good. I bet you could."

"I don't know," Robbie says, doubtful.

"You could probably get lots of grants and loans and stuff because you're Jewish and don't have a lot of money, which is weird," Jade continues. "You could probably get something for not having a dad, too, they give grants for things like that."

"Really?" Robbie asks. He appears hesitant, wavering between excited and dour, and finally settles on dour. "Well, I don't know about any of that stuff. Probably Mom doesn't either."

Jade shoves the papers further at him for emphasis, and he squeaks a little as one of the flyers falls into his lap. "I'll take care of it!" she declares. "Dad has a big book of all this stuff. I'll look it up for you."

"Really?" Robbie asks again, doing that horrible really overtly nerdy thing where he looks at her with his mouth open and pushes his glasses up his nose.

"Sure," Jade says briskly, choosing to ignore the Open Mouth / Glasses Push because he's considering the audition and is probably thinking really hard about it. "My dad looked up a bunch of stuff when my mom went back to school and he found a lot of grants for her. I bet you can get them too!" Importantly, she repeats, "I'll look it up for you."

"Okay," Robbie says, and beams up over at her, which is nice. "That would be really cool. Thanks." He does the Glasses Push again. "You're my best friend, Jade."

Ugh, God! She hates it when he gets all emotional like this, especially at_ school_. Doesn't he know by now not to do things like that? People are probably going to start thinking they're dating, what with him going around being all_ affected_ at her all of the time.

"God, whatever," she says, and leans across the table to assault his lunch sack. "You got a ham sandwich today? Gimme half, then let's go find Andre."


End file.
